By Chimezie Godfrey
The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre , CISLAC, in collaboration with Tax Justice Network Africa, TJNA, have called on governments across Africa to increase the taxes for tobacco consumption and tobacco multinational corporations.
The Executive Director, CISLAC, Auwal Rafsanjani made the call Wednesday in Abuja at the Launch and Dissemination of Study Report on Tobacco Industry and Illicit Financial Flows in Africa.
Rafsanjani revealed that so much money have been laundered out of Africa through the tobacco companies, adding that tobacco consumption has done enormous damage to the health of Africans especially the youths that are the highest consumers of tobacco.
He therefore stressed the need for governments across the African continent to put in place right policies that will minimize tobacco consumption, illicit financial flow among the component countries of Africa, and ensure that the tobacco companies are taxed appropriately.
He said,”As part of our contribution to ensuring that we minimise or at least advocate for the reduction IFF, money laundry, tax evasion, tax avoidance which is directly affecting our economy and affecting development in Africa, Tax Justice Network which CISLAC is a national chapter in Nigeria, conducted a research to show effects of the tobacco companies’ activities in Africa which is helping to launder money out of our continent and also helping to destroy the health of our people, also exploiting, especially the local farmers.
“So we decided to carry out this study to show the consequences and negative effect of the way and manner tobacco companies are destroying the health of Africans, at the same time, helping to fuel corruption in Africa because some of the have found ways of going to African legislature and parliament to bribe them so that they can have a soft landing legal frame work.
“Some of them are working with some unpatriotic government officials across Africa to get tax relief, tax waver, instead of taxing them to pay appropriate taxes that can be used for development.
“This is why we have been working closely with some of the government agencies to show them the implications of the activities these multinational corporations in the name of tobacco industry who over the years have done a lot of harm to the well being of Nigerians and Africans.
“What we have seen in other countries abroad, especially in the western world, the tobacco consumption is reducing, in the case of Africa, in the case of Africa it is increasing; our children, our brothers and sisters, many of them are even going mad because they are taking Indian hemps, they are taking all sorts of substances that are damning and killing their heart.
“When you look at the major diseases that are killing peopl in this wold, particularlyin African, tobacco is one of the profound disease that is killing Africans and Nigerians.
“At the same time, Nigeria is not able to meet with the minimal budgetary allocation agreed by African leaders and many countries in aftrica Africa are not able to meet up with that despite the commitment to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). So we are lacking health financing, we are having serious deficit in the health care system in our country in Africa.
“Our continent has continued to suffer the consequences of corruption as a result IFF as well as tax evasion, tax avoidance and corrupting public officials so that they can have their way. This is why we think it is important that we work closely with the relevant government to provide alternative to even those famers who are actually producing the tobacco on behalf of these companies because they are not even paying them reasonable amount. They exploit them, they destroy our health, they take away the money, they also connive to fuel corruption in our continent and our country.
“We need to as a civil society, work closely with the relevant government agencies across Africa and the region. We are working closely with ECOWAS to highlight and show the danger and the risk for the continuation of allowing the tobacco industry to have their way.
“So we suggest to our government in Africa that they need to increase the taxes both for the tobacco consumptions and also for the tobacco multinational corporation because what they are doing in their country is not what they are doing in Africa. Why are they making Africa to be just a dust bin? In their countries their are rules and regulations they follow but in Africa those rules and regulations that guarantee the safety of the people’s republic are not there.”
Rafsanjani disclosed that from the research available, it could be seen that the tobacco companies had made more money during the covid while legitimate businesses suffered.
“Even Nigeria is not able to produce the required crude oil that it is supposed to be selling out. The tobacco companies were very comfortable. So something fundamental is wrong and we do everything possible to address that.
“There is just an estimation, there is no exact amount actually but it is a huge and they are making money out it and they are not paying the required tax. It is a huge amount, it not in naira, it is in other denominations which we will make the report available for you to see the exact figures,” he said.
On actions taken to discourage consumers of tobacco, he said,”Part of the sensitisation we are doing is around public education; if people know that this kills, it shows how your heart and lungs are destroyed, then you will be able to stop or minimise the consumption. It is one of the highest killers, not even HIV, not even other diseases that we know.”
Also speaking, the Executive Director, Tax Justice Network, Alvin Mosioma noted that tax is the price citizens pay to live in a civilized society, adding that tax represents the opportunity to grow the size of the cake “our stomach”.
According to him, tax is the opportunity to address the myriads of challenges across Africa , adding that tax represents the most sustainable mechanism for self-sustanance.
Mosioma stressed the need for effective tax system that will discourage the consumption of tobacco and equally assist to generate enough revenue for African countries.
He therefore said their effort is aimed at reducing the consumption of tobacco and its negative impact on Africans, as well as ensuring that the companies producing tobacco are paying their fair share of tax.
“Our efforts is on how do you ensure that we are putting in place the right policies that are reducing the consumption of tabacco, the second is to ensure that even as we are reducing the consumption of tobacco, the companies that are responsible for production and sale of tobacco products in the continent are paying their fare share of tax.
“On the first question of tobacco tax, using for example, the different tax rates, what we realised as the big challenge we face in the tax structure of many of our countries are not in a way that they are discouraging consumption, we find that particular due to the pressure from the tobacco companies that hold a very strong power in terms of influence and policies in our different countries and efforts by governments to introduce or raise the tobacco tax receives many at times, huge resistance and that’s why we feel that as citizens and civil society organisations we need to organize ourselves to be able to resist and counter those efforts of tobacco industry to influence our policies,” he said.
On corporate tax, he added,”What we realised which this studies affirm is that tobacco industry, overall globally, particularly also in the continent are finding ways of reducing their corporate income tax by managing the prices, under-reporting the prices of the income that they make and therefore reducing significantly, the profits they declare to the tax authorities and this is the other side of the conversation. These are the do-aways that we are trying to encourage a broad conversation and ensure that the discussion and the policy debates of the tobacco is not limited to the industry but gets a broad societal discussions, that’s the purpose of the meeting we have been having over the last three days.”
